Taking a monkey from the forest is wrong. Buying and selling them is wrong. But the biggest crime of all is maltreating or abandoning them.
We publish in English and Spanish. Spanish translations are by Gabriela. We welcome visitors. Our e-mail address is
philip.cordrey@gmail.com.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

There is not much Spaghetti in the forest.

Yesterday the 3rd of October 2007, we had a great trip to Valencia to visit Nancy the Veterinary at Los Colorados Veterinary Clinic. The purpose of our visit was to give Miss Billy a medical check up and to diagnose her problems with mobility. Well, Miss Billy voted it the best medical visit she has ever had. No anesthetics, no needles, no knives in fact nothing frightening at all. The result was that our original thoughts were confirmed. During her growing up, she had rickets. She has all the classic symptoms. Bowed arm and leg bones, curved spine, elongated face, and a barrel chest. The chest bones did not grow long enough so they tend to bow outwards to cover the cavity. This can give a greater propensity to pneumonia in later years.The laboratory test also showed that she has some intestinal parasites.

Nancy told me that she had seen monkey’s far worse and that in spite of her age (5 years) the prognosis is good. She will start a calcium supplement to be administered daily for the next 5 months. By that time we should see an improvement. The crouched gait should broaden out into near normal. This gait is caused by Miss Billy trying to avoid movements which give her pain. The bones of course will not straighten but her motility will improve.With all the love in the world, a person or a monkey cannot achieve good health if the ingredience are not there. Monkeys need a specialized diet. This need has been refined over centuries of existence, mainly in the process of foraging in the forest. The metabolism is modified by evolution to use and accept these substances and without them the body fails.Miss Billy has been brought up on human food, (she gets excited by the sight and smell of spaghetti). FACT: There is not much Spaghetti in the forest.Human food is not appropriate for monkeys, and they cannot thrive on it. Nor were they designed to live in the sitting room of an apartment, devoid of sunlight and trees.